


In Which Adrien Agreste Sorely Misunderstands Things

by Allikizme



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Adrien Agreste Needs a Hug, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir-centric, Angst, F/M, POV Adrien Agreste, Reveal, SADrien, one-sided reveal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-09
Updated: 2019-04-09
Packaged: 2020-01-07 11:32:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18409775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Allikizme/pseuds/Allikizme
Summary: Chat Noir accidentally discovered Ladybug's identity, and safe to say, it broke his heart.Because if anyone would never return his feelings, it's Marinette Dupain-Cheng.





	In Which Adrien Agreste Sorely Misunderstands Things

**Author's Note:**

> I basically wanted Adrien to feel some bad feelings with an ultimately good ending. This short ignores that episode where Marinette is revealed to have posters of Adrien all over her walls.

Adrien dropped his head on his desk, feeling absolutely and utterly defeated. “No wonder Ladybug never liked Chat Noir,” he mumbled. “Marinette can’t stand Adrien.”

“That’s not true,” said Plagg.

“It is though.” Adrien blew a bit of hair out of his face. “I wanted to keep trying, because I was sure that, maybe if she didn’t like Chat Noir, meeting the real me… I guess. I guess I just thought I’d always have a second chance. But now I know it’s hopeless.”

“Come on, kid, buck up!” Plagg zipped into his line of sight. “So you know who Ladybug is, and she’s even one of your friends! A friend that you’ve always sort of liked! What’s the matter?”

Adrien really felt like he might cry. “She only tolerates me for Alya and Nino.” He kept replaying that moment, over and over, watching Ladybug lose her glamour and turn into sixteen year old Marinette Dupain-Cheng. And that squeeze on his heart. That hollow, sorrowful swoop. Because Marinette was the only person whom no matter what he tried, he could not win.

“I don’t want to go to school tomorrow.”

“Finally. School’s lame.” Plagg drifted down to his ever-present cheese plate. “Let’s play video games instead.”

“What do I do, Plagg?” whispered Adrien. His nose was starting to itch with tears. “Do I tell her I know? She would hate me all over again.”

“Nobody hates you, Adrien, stop being overdramatic.” Plagg brought him a slice of cheese. “Camembert?”

Adrien screwed his face up against the impending sobs. “I think,” he said, barely audible, “I’m gonna shower.”

Plagg watched Adrien make the most pathetic trip from his desk chair to the bathroom, dragging his feet like the least graceful slob, and close the door behind him. “Ugh,” Plagg sighed. “Why is this one so completely helpless.”

* * *

 

School the next day was so, so hard. Adrien tried to immerse himself in the work, but Marinette and Alya sat giggling behind him, and Nino kept turning around to chat with his girlfriend.

He got out of eating lunch with everyone with the excuse that he had to catch up on homework—(“Oh, we can help you!” Alya said) actually, a phone call for work that was very urgent and had to be done at lunch and would take the whole of lunch, yep.

So Adrien ate some snacks that his father would surely scoff at and played a game on his phone in a study room in the library.

“Look at you, sulking,” Plagg said. “You don’t think that this is going overboard?”

“Can I deal with my feelings in peace, please?”

“Ugh.” Plagg rolled his little green eyes. “Please just use communication to make all our lives easier.”

Adrien put his phone down and sighed as heavily as he could muster. “I’m not going to go get hurt when I already know the answer!”

Plagg crossed his arms. “Go talk to her! Or else!”

“Please just let me wallow.”

Plagg harrumphed. “Fine. Wallow. But if an akuma hits, good luck being Chat Noir!” And then Plagg zipped through the walls of the study room and disappeared.

“Plagg!” Adrien called. He stood up. “Plagg!”

Lunch was almost over, and students were milling about the halls. Adrien had to push his way through the crowd, and, god, this was so dangerous! What if someone saw Plagg?

He ducked and dodged and swerved until he was suddenly face to face with

“Marinette!”

Marinette started violently, dropped her notebook, and slammed her hand into her open locker door. “Adrien! Ow!”

Adrien blinked down at her, his heart in his throat. He couldn’t stand to look her in the eye, knowing what she thought about him. Alya was there too, smirking as she leaned against the lockers.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Plagg zip into the locker by Alya’s head. And Adrien had a feeling he wouldn’t come out until he bit the bullet.

“Marinette,” Adrien murmured, “I um, I need to talk to you.”

Marinette glanced at Alya. God, all these secret, unspoken conversations they had! Always about him. He couldn’t meet her eyes.

“O-okay, Adrien, what’s down? I mean. Not. I mean. Up? What’s. What’s up.”

He fingered the strap of his messenger bag. “Um. Can we talk alone?”

Another meaningful look. “Y-yeah, of. Of course.”

He led her into the nearest classroom. “Could you, uh, close the door,” he said. She jumped surprised, but did as he asked, now with a little red in her cheeks. God, she was embarrassed to be alone with him! He took a deep breath, hands on the desk, seeing her out of the corner of his eye. If he looked directly at her he feared he would burst into tears.

“So, um, what’s going on?” Marinette had a strange laugh in her voice. She sounded less like Ladybug here. Maybe that would help.

“I, um, I know.”

Marinette was quiet. “Y-you do?”

He sighed. “Yeah.”

Marinette made a strange noise. “Um. I. I. Oh no.” She leaned against the wall. “Do you. Do you hate me?”

“Hate you?” Adrien looked at her then, and he was surprised to see that she had shrunk, that she was scared. He softened his voice. “I could never hate you, Ladybug.”

“I mean you—.” Marinette stopped. “Wait. What did you say?”

Adrien tried to hide his discomfort. “I didn’t mean to find out.”

Marinette laughed, the most uncomfortable sound Adrien had ever heard. “You—you think that _I’m—me?_ Ladybug? Ha. Ha ha. That’s. Um.”

“It’s okay, Marinette,” Adrien said. He had to put her feelings first. “It really was an accident. And I’m sorry I’ve broken your trust.” He smiled a little. “But I understand now why you never, um, returned my advances.” He gestured to her, laughing so as not to cry. “I mean, you’re Marinette! I-if you hate Adrien, why would you ever love Chat Noir?”

“I’m not—.” She stopped, her expression turning to one of panic. “ _Hate_ you?” she squeaked. “You think I—hate you?”

He shrugged instead of bursting into tears. “It’s fine, really.”

“No it’s not!” Marinette stamped her foot. “How did I do this so wrong? Adrien, I. I can never speak around you because I like you! I like you a lot! And I get nervous and everything goes wrong and oh my god you think I _hate_ you?”

Adrien was stunned. “You. You like me?”

“Yes!” she cried. “Oh my god I’ve got our life planned out! I named our kids!”

Marinette glared at him. It was Adrien’s turn to feel small. “Oh.”

“Yeah,” she snapped. “ _Oh._ ”

Adrien puffed out his cheeks under her intense gaze. “Um. Sorry.”

“Yeah you should be!”

He hesitated while she fumed, then said, “Did you miss the part where I’m Chat Noir?”

Marinette’s jaw dropped. “You’re _Chat Noir!?_ ”


End file.
